We have had quite the adventure, and a GREAT reason for not posting a blog entry over the last week...
On Friday, it snowed some, and a bunch was called for. I let the boys play in the snow, and they had a great time! Here are a few shots:
Carl was out of town, and we needed groceries. So I packed the boys up, headed out into the storm for a bit to get a few groceries and to get a nice hot lunch... We got home, drove over to the neighbors for a few minutes to say hi... and there we find out that the power was out.
Ok, no biggie, people around here have never driven in snow and have a really hard time with it, and hit poles all the time in the winter. So I pack the kids back into the car and with quite a bit of difficulty, drive it to our house... but I didn't make it far into the driveway before... well, in an hour or two, we went from 2 inches to this:
No big deal, I was out of the road and in the driveway, and hey, the power had come back on and we had no where to go! It was set to be a night of cuddling and enjoying hot cocoa as the snow fell.
Oh how the snow fell, it was a hard, wet snow. One of those snows where you get wet and can't just brush it off.
Over the next few hours, the cable and internet went out, and then the electric began to blink on and off, over and over. I decided to send the boys to bed, thinking that if the electric did go out, it would be easier if the boys were in bed and they didn't have to be trying to find things in the dark... I filled the bath tubs with water (because we are on a well and no electric means no potty flushing unless you have water), I filled bottles, found candles and a light, and added extra quilts to the beds.
Well preparing slightly turned out to be a good decision... because about 30 minutes later, the lights went out, along with the heat, the water, and everything else. I did take a few photos to show how much snow we were getting at about 7pm:
Then 9:
And by 10:30, the ruler was gone and the snow was about 16 inches deep.
Saturday morning we wake up a little chilly, the temperature in the house was about 58. Not awful, just enough to throw on an extra shirt and we were good to go. As the day wore on, and the snow kept falling, we realized the power might be off for a while and found out why there was no electric... That WET snow I mentioned... yeah, our power lines were in the road, along with the cable and phones.
67,000 people in 2 counties were without power!!
Here were a few other shots I was able to grab (we didn't want to be wet or colder, or open the doors to let the little heat we did have out...)
And in this one, note how much deeper the snow was!
So, to pass the time we took a few photos and knitted... and I remembered to grab one of Canyon's noggin... (Now some of these were before we lost power...)
Well, it began to get cold, so after a cold lunch, I thought to bury my frozen turkey in a cooler in the snow to keep it from defrosting too soon for Christmas... and then I made the kids stay in my bedroom, with our candles lit, and was able to get the temperature up to 50degrees or so. Canyon and Arden began jumping from the one chair in my room to the toddler bed I set up for Arden to sleep in, and low and behold, Canyon jumps into the window sill and blackens his eye, dents his eyebrow, and gets a wicked cut. That put an end to the play time and around 6:30 we went to bed.
Sunday morning we woke up and were able to see our breath in the room. It was cold... the only thing that was no longer cold was the fridge... all of our food had begun to spoil. At this point I remembered that we had a dinner party we were supposed to attend and I texted our friends that we had gotten snowed in and wouldn't be able to make it...
As the day went on, the temperature didn't go up at all, and the kids weren't getting warm. I decided to allow myself to depend on the generosity of friends and we spent the next night with them.
Monday was operation hamster extraction... when we left, we took only what we needed, and left Houdini the hamster, and the dogs at home... but as the day wore on I began to worry about the hamster. I knew the dogs were fine, but Houdini I wasn't so sure. I was able to get him out, and home to our friends AND I had the van now!
On Tuesday night, the electric was back on, I was home and in my bed and Carl finally made it home. I helped a car that was stuck in the snow/mud get out, and got muddy and wet... but also got to sled ride with the boys some. We even went out to see Santa.
Today, we went and got Houdini, helped stuck motorists out of the neighborhood, and cleaned the mess that we made while being snowed in.
Our internet came on a few hours ago, and not a moment too soon!
I hope everyone had a great week and a wonderful Solstice! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas too!
